128: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks (1986)
For this year’s Halloween episode, we wanted to go with an artist who scares the living daylights out of us, and what better choice than Nick Cave? After all, this is a man who once recorded an entire album of murder ballads, and whose legendary single “The Mercy Seat” charts a killer’s stream of consciousness as he is led to the electric chair. We could have picked almost any of Cave’s albums with the Bad Seeds, but Mike threw a curveball and chose the covers album Kicking Against the Pricks, because sometimes the best way to get to the essence of an artist’s work is examining the way they interpret and curate the work of other artists. The album boasts a truly eclectic set of songs, with pitch-dark Delta blues sharing a tracklist with light pop by Tom Jones, Gene Pitney, and the Seekers, all cloaked in the one-of-a-kind, macabre atmosphere that Cave’s fans have come to know, love, and fear. Yet by the time this carnival is over, you’ll have a sense of the light that glows beneath the darkness of his music. Happy Halloween!